Solicitor General, Maninder Singh, appearing for CBI, contended that the agency had registered 12 FIRs and it was verifying documents in rest of the alleged fake encounter cases.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday slammed CBI for not complying with its order to lodge FIR in alleged fake encounter cases in Manipur and set a deadline of January-end to register case in 42 such incidents which were examined by judicial bodies.

A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit, which had last year directed CBI to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to conduct probe in fake encounter cases, said the order passed by the court was for registering FIR and the agency had to follow its order in true spirit. Additional solicitor general Maninder Singh, appearing for CBI, contended that the agency had registered 12 FIRs and it was verifying documents in rest of the alleged fake encounter cases.

“We make it clear that on or before January 31, 2018, all FIRs must be registered in respect of the remaining 30 cases as mentioned in the three tables that we have mentioned in the judgement dated July 14, 2017,” the bench said.

The top court had on July 14 last year set up an SIT comprising five CBI officers and ordered registration of FIRs and probe into alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur. It had asked the CBI director to nominate a team of five officers for the SIT to lodge the necessary FIRs and complete the investigation into alleged fake encounters by December 31 last year.

The apex court, which is hearing a PIL seeking probe into 1,528 alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur, had in July last year ordered registration of FIR in 81 cases. These cases include 32 probed by a Commissions of Enquiry, 32 cases investigated by judicial inquiries and high courts, 11 cases in which compensation was awarded by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and six cases probed by a commission headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Santosh Hegde.